The Bees and the Other Bees
by Angevon
Summary: Kanji finds the 'goods' in Souji's room by complete accident. An awkward discussion of sexuality ensues.


[AN: Okay, so it's not really the 'goods' but it's close enough!

Rated mostly for theme, not content.]

* * *

Kanji was left alone in Souji's room. His senpai wouldn't be gone long. He was just walking Nanako-chan to her little friend's house down the road.

Kanji was supposed to be finishing up the algebra problems his senpai had left him with, but dammit he'd never been that good at math this complicated. Calculating the cost of thirty spools of 'red #7' embroidery thread, sure, he could do that in a heartbeat. Just business as usual. But put letters that stand for numbers into the equation and Kanji found it a little hard to follow.

He leaned back in Souji's desk chair, which was a bad idea because the top of the wooden chair dug painfully into his back. Tch, sometimes being so tall was a pain in the ass.

In his stretch, he noticed his senpai's bookshelf. Kanji wasn't much of a reader, but there were magazines in a neat little pile up there. He needed a break, so he lazily reached his arm out and pulled the magazines down.

Fishing, more fishing, women's health (?), a TV guide, even more fishing, and, oh, _Daruma_ magazine. A kimono on the cover of this one caught Kanji's eye. Without further ado, he opened up the magazine and flipped through it, though he wondered why his senpai kept around an art magazine that was published in English...

A folded piece of paper fell out. He scrambled to grab it before it fell to the floor. Tch, it was probably just a subscription form, anyway—

Hmm? No, it was an essay of some sort in Souji-senpai's handwriting. He recognized that deliberate script, though the pen strokes seemed to be rushed near the end. As if the writer had been excited...

And then Kanji noticed the content of the 'essay' and his face turned crimson. S-senpai was writing love letters or somethin'?

_'Souji-kun,' he whispered in my ear, his breath hot and promising. I moaned as his fingers toyed with my belt and_

And Kanji choked out an embarrassed and surprised cough as the story swiftly took an erotic turn.

Kanji blinked and glanced at the door, gauging whether his senpai would be back soon.

He swallowed.

* * *

He was still reading it—actually, re-reading it—when Souji walked into the room. He didn't even hear the guy return home because he was so, uh... 'lost in the story.'

"Sh-shit!" Kanji swore, and scrambled to fold the story up and shove it back in the magazine, but it was already too late, he'd definitely been caught. "S-senpai... Uhh..."

His silver-haired senpai blinked at him. "What," Souji began. Then he recognized the magazine even though Kanji was trying to hide the title under his arm. "Oh! Oh... You found that." His face flushed a little at that, like 'pink #5' fabric.

"I'm sorry, senpai!" Kanji exclaimed. "I didn't mean to, uh..."

Senpai pulled the magazine from his unresisting hands and took out the paper, unfolded it, and glanced over it. His blush deepened to 'red #9.'

He looked directly at Kanji. "You read this?"

Kanji considered lying only for a second. "Yeah," he admitted.

Twice.

"I wrote this."

"I could tell." Souji had been the main character, after all.

Souji chuckled and scratched the back of his head, an action he rarely performed. "I'm sorry you had to see that. Embarrassing, huh?"

"Y-yeah," Kanji said uncertainly. "I didn't know you were a writer, senpai. Or that you, err..."

"Like guys?" Souji finished. "Actually, I have been meaning to talk to you about this."

"Wh-what do you mean by that!?" Kanji demanded, hands clenching into fists. The chair squeaked under him as he tensed up in it.

"Kanji," Souji said, not unkindly. "I'm comfortable now with my sexuality. But a year ago, I wasn't. It's not easy to have doubts—"

"I ain't got any doubts!" Kanji declared, raising his fists defensively.

"Kanji," Souji said again.

Kanji let his indignation fade away. He lowered his fists until they were resting on his knees. This was Souji-senpai, after all. The guy who'd saved his ass just a month ago.

...from his queer-ass Shadow.

"You like guys?" Kanji eventually asked.

"Yep," said Souji, apparently completely unashamed. "Can't explain it. I just do."

"How'd you... know?" Kanji asked in as hushed a voice as he could manage.

"I struggled to figure it out," Souji admitted. "Because I kept denying it, telling myself, 'It's not right,' and fighting it. Threw myself into relationships with girls, trying to prove to myself that was what I wanted. It... wasn't." His voice was a whisper at the end, and the pained look on his face was equally painful to look at.

Kanji couldn't think of anything to say.

"So," Souji continued more brightly. "If you find yourself liking, say, a guy... There's nothing wrong with it, Kanji. And, take your time. You don't have to figure it out right away."

Unbidden, Kanji's mind turned to Naoto Shirogane. That damned cute detective who made his stomach somersault into knots so complicated that probably only Naoto could unravel them anyway. Stupid kid and his stupid fashion sense. What kind of teenager wore plaid? And looked good in it?

Kanji hadn't seen the boy in a while and it was driving him absolutely nuts.

"Ye-yeah?" Kanji managed to say through a very dry throat.

Souji clapped him on the shoulder. "Yeah. And you can always talk to me, all right?"

"Y-yeah. Sure, senpai." Kanji paused. "Uh, about that story..."

"Mm?" Souji turned the story over in his hands. The dirty words popped out and caught Kanji's eye, to his private embarrassment. "Maybe I should work on the sequel."

"Wouldn't mind readin' it," Kanji said, the words exiting his mouth without any input at all from his brain.

Souji smiled at him and patted his shoulder. "Little steps, Kanji. Little steps."

* * *

[AN: Someone suggested that I write a 'Yosuke finds the goods' story, but there are already enough of them out there. So I thought, why not Kanji instead? But him finding a dirty magazine is too obvious... so I thought maybe Souji writes his own dirty stories of the self-insert kind.

Inspired by "Everyone Writes Fluff" by scatter over at AO3.]


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